April 27 -
Neil Gardner found himself caught in a nightmare a week ago today. A nightmare of kids screaming and crying, gunshots and bomb blasts shaking his reality.

"I couldn't believe it was happening to my school,'' said the Jefferson County deputy sheriff, who was the first officer on the scene of the mass killing at Columbine High School, where he is the school resource officer and the girls' softball coach.

"It's just a horrible nightmare for me. My quiet, little, peaceful school just turned into a war zone. It was unbelievable.''

Gardner, who is in his second year working at the school, was patrolling Clement Park next to Columbine when a school janitor summoned him on the school radio. The agitated janitor said he was needed in the back parking lot of the high school.

Before Gardner arrived, a sheriff's dispatcher said by radio that a girl was "down'' in the parking lot. When he arrived, a pipe bomb had just exploded, leaving a cloud of smoke, and the dispatcher was telling him there were shots fired in the school.

"As I exited the patrol car, one of the suspects, who I believe to be Eric Harris, stepped out of the southwest doors and he started opening fire with an assault rifle,'' Gardner said Monday evening.

The deputy ducked inside his patrol car as the gunman fired a volley of about 10 shots before his gun seemed to jam.

"I did a quick peek through the window,'' said Gardner, who is the father of three. "I could see he was fiddling (with the rifle), either reloading it or his gun was jammed.

"At this point I went to the front of a Chevy Blazer, leaned over the hood and fired four or five times at the suspect,'' from 60-65 yards away.

The gunman was wearing a vest over a white T-shirt, and Gardner though at the time it might be a flak jacket.

"I don't know if he was reacting to the bullets going by, but he made a quick jerk to the right,'' Gardner said.

The suspect then got his rifle back in working order and fired 15-20 more shots in Gardner's direction. The deputy ducked back down behind the engine block and front tire of the Blazer. The vehicle took several hits from the bullets.

"You could hear most of them going over the top ... I was thinking, 'I can't believe this is happening.' ''

The gunman ducked back inside the building as another sheriff's car arrived.

Gardner and deputies Scott Taborsky and Paul Smoker turned their attention to pulling injured students in the parking lot to safety behind the patrol car.

While rescue efforts were under way, bombs were going off in the building and gunmen were shooting out the windows in the library.

Gardner saw the same gunman return to the southwest doors of the school and poke his rifle out, exchanging more shots with the officers in the parking lot.

All total, Gardner fired eight shots in his two encounters with the gunman, he said.

The deputy is left haunted by thoughts of what might have been different if he had hit the gunman during their exchange of gunfire.

"It's in the back of my mind,'' he said somberly. "If I had put him down ... I don't know how many people he may have shot after that. I have to live with that.''

The deputy said he knew of Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, the teen identified as Harris' accomplice, but he didn't know them personally. They had never been disrespectful to him, Gardner said.

He was surprised to be exchanging gunshots with Harris.

"There are certainly kids in the school that scare me more than he would have,'' Gardner said.

Gardner has been on administrative leave since the incident, but he hopes to return to work Thursday.

"I'm hoping to be back at Chatfield (High School) with my kids.''

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